


and will have your eyes

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2010, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a job in a small construction company in Des Moines, wakes up every morning before sunup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and will have your eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nyoka](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Nyoka).



> Thanks to Dotfic for being her awesome self. All remaining mistakes are mine. Written for Nyoka's birthday on December, 20th. Title from Cesare Pavese's Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi.
> 
> [Originally posted [here](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/223832.html).]

They arrive in Eldon after cutting through the entire State of Iowa. Dean likes it, flat land and the sky so big it swallows everything. Rivers and streams like a net of veins on the earth. They'd been in Iowa before, two weeks in 1994, on the tracks of a fast-moving water spirit, which, considering half of Iowa is made of rivers and torrents and lakes, had been a fucking hilarious hunt. Twelve motel rooms in twelve days, running at a dizzying speed in the hope of breaking the curse. Dean doesn't remember a lot of Iowa from that visit except for being soaked through the entire time, jeans damp and heavy on his skin. Luckily it had been summer.

The sign announces when they cross into Eldon's city limits, population 998. John drives through the main street, all the way to the edge of the town, and parks the Impala in front of a two-story house of white-painted lumber shining in the moonlight.

Dean reads the address written in paint on a square of dark wood: 327, 9th Street. It's easy to remember.

"We're here," says John while he turns the engine off and Dean looks outside, up at the house bathed in that cool light. Dean hears Sam's sigh floating from the backseat, long and put upon. The house isn't a lot to look at this close, all rotting lumber and weeds growing wildly up to the porch. And the white is really a dirty gray in large patches where the paint hasn't peeled off completely to show the wood beneath it. Dean thinks it's kind of pretty.

"Why not a motel?" Dean asks.

John keeps looking through the windshield when he answers. "Too long a stay for a motel," he says.

***

"Rules," John says, the thump of his duffle on the Formica table is loud. He lets the word hang in the silence. The sun hits him sideways, faded through a curtain of dirt on the glass.

"We're the Winchesters here. Dean Sam and John." He points to himself last and Sam's snort this time is too loud for John to ignore. Dean rolls his eyes and hopes Sam can mind his tongue at least until tomorrow.

For some strange turn of good luck Sam does indeed keep silent under John's sharp gaze.

Sam has been restless since they'd left South Dakota, fidgeting in the car and huffing his way through two books on the way to Iowa – stomping feet and raised shoulders every time Dean tries to ask what's wrong. Twice Sam refused to talk and Dean's gotten into the habit of teasing him extra hard.

In the renewed silence, John finally speaks again.

"Cash only, no credit cards scams and no hustling pool in a fifty-mile radius." The last bit he says looking straight at Dean and Dean shrugs. He does some fast counting and knows that no hustling and no fake credit cards are an impossible combo. Unless John has won the lottery or something: a thought as wild as imagining John actually playing the lottery.

"Dad," he says, but John stops him before he can raise his objection and it always surprises Dean how good he is at anticipating what Dean's going to say.

"Money's been taken care of for now. Unload the car," he says while he opens the door. "We'll talk in the morning."

***

It's still summer, the field behind the house freshly shaved and seeded and Dean wonders if the corn will grow like Sam, if the stalks will spring up like Sam had, seemingly overnight. Dean stares through his window on the first floor, through the planks that had been nailed against the sill; two at a right angle, like a down-turned cross. The glass is so dirty Dean has to wipe it with a hand to let some light enter. No fresh air yet, and the room needs it, stuffed as it is with a smell of old dust and broken pipes under the tang of his and Sam's boots resting this side of the door.

In all honesty, the house is a shithole.

He kicks at Sam's feet sticking out from the end of the bed – not because Sam's longer, not yet, but because he has the stupid habit of sleeping in the lower half, on his belly and hugging his pillow. It could have been sweet if Sam weren't drooling so much, the stain on the pillowcase a big, dark, and gross spot under his mouth.

When all he gets with his shove is a grunt, Dean screams in Sam's ear, "Rise and shine." And Sam does react then, as fast and deadly accurate as Dean was expecting him to be. Dean doesn't even mind he get that same drool-soaked pillow smashed on his face, except for the fact that yeah, it's gross.

***

 

John gets a job in a small construction company in Des Moines, wakes up every morning before sunup.

When they hunt, John barely sleeps, goes in circles of hunt-work-hunt, that make the lines around his eyes deepen.

Those evenings they're home, John sits on the porch, stretches his legs on the rail.

Sometimes, he tells Dean of Mom.

Dean stays still, holds his breath, He sits on the steps this side of Dad's legs, looks at the black hole of the fields of corn. Some nights he wishes Sam were awake so he too could listen to John's memories of their past life.

***

The first two weeks in Eldon, they kill a wraith and burn two bodies. Sam and Dean spend an insane amount of time reading old newspapers in the Des Moines public Library.

The afternoons are lazy, Sam bored out of his mind without school to keep him busy.

Sam likes the river, though, so they go swimming in the green water, and after, they lie on the grass until the sun dries their skin.

"Do you think we'll stay 'till school ends?" Sam asks.

Dean doesn't answer. It'd be nice if they did, but John always got good reasons to leave. Dean wished Sam would get it.

After, they walk to the 'Gothic House', glorious touristy attraction of Eldon. Sam's excited, but Dean thinks it's just a house with a fancy window.

He takes a picture of Sam in front of it with a disposable camera, though. He has to admit Sam got the sulking expression down to a tee.

***

Sam's new friend has a sister Dean's age. He listens to her music while the kids work on their science project downstairs.

He looks as she braids her hair with a blue ribbon, and she smiles at her reflection, smiles at him through the mirror. Her hair is soft and smells of apples, her lipstick pink like the curtains and the walls and the coverlet on the bed.

Dean smears it all over her cheeks that first time he kisses her.

She never talks to him at school the few times he bothers to go: she only throws glances his way when she thinks Dean's not watching. Dean shrugs it off, finds it doesn't hurt. Not at all. Being someone's dirty secret.

***

Winter comes and it bends his knees.

In November, John grows restless, hunches over in his coat, against the cold, against the wind.

"I'll be back in two days." The light is white and the circles around John's eyes are black like they're rendered in ink. He closes the trunk and then he's gone, the Impala leaving behind puffs of dirt the wind promptly dispels. Sam stands by the door, his face in the shadows. The day is cold. So cold it takes Dean's breath away.

John comes back a week later, loaded with salt and ammo and books, the cuffs of his jacket brown and crusted with blood.

***

The day Dean turns eighteen, Dad gives him the key of the Impala, says, "Drive carefully."

Dean wakes Sam up, ushers him out and into the car, jingles the keys in front of his face, and Sam grins wide and happy.

Dean drives with the windows rolled down, lets the wind bite cold on his skin and Sam's quietly happy in the passenger seat. He pumps up the music when they hit the highway.

***

In March the terrain is still frozen. Over the river, banks of ice crash against each other dragged by the current. April is cruel; it kills the first blossoms with winter's last cutting lash.

He and Sam run along the riverbanks, on the frozen earth and Sam sprints ahead, his voce shrill when he says, "Catch me, if you can."

Dean races behind him a step back, always a step back, covering Sam.

***

The ghost throws him against a wall.

Dean stays there, where he's fallen, hands numb and ears ringing with John's last shout.

Dazed, he looks at his twisted legs, at the blood slowly seeping into his jeans, a dark wet shape colorless in the moonlight. He thinks, _move_ but he doesn't, the command lost like a child in a maze, somewhere between brain cells and nerves, muscles and bones. The air is June-warm.

John slays the ghost like an avenging angel and scowls at Dean's leg, at the large spread of blood, at the tears in his jeans, bought the previous week.

***

Dean sits in the backseat, back propped up on stolen pillows; John drives all the way through Eldon, on the main road, opposite direction from when they arrived.

"Where we going?" Sam asks, and Dean hears the echo of his frantic worry in his quiet voice.

John points with his finger straight ahead. "Got a lead in Arkansas."

Beyond the windows, the city passes by like it's on stage. The fairground with it's broken swings waving slightly with the morning breeze, then the school, Sam's and his, Jamie Masterson's house, the countryside with the familiar paths, when John drives out of the town.

There will be another town, soon. Another house or motel room, summer in between, with John hopping from jig to jig, training will be more intense and Sam will start sulking, until John decides it's time they visit pastor Jim, or Bobby.

Eldon will become a hazy memory.

Dean doesn't even look back for a last look.

\--


End file.
